Painting Piedmont

The next creative resident of importance was George Sterling, nephew to Frank C. Havens, moved from New York to California in 1890 to work as secretary for his uncle's Oakland-based Realty Syndicate in 1895 with F. M. ("Borax") Smith. 

Sterling’s first year in Oakland was a rather industrious one; however, all of that changed with the arrival of his boyhood friend, Roosevelt Johnson, in 1891. As a direct result of Johnson’s presence in Oakland, during the next two years, Sterling would meet two men who would have a profound influence over the course of his life. The first was Joaquin Miller; the other was Ambrose Bierce, both significant representatives of gold rush California. Sterling’s relationship with Miller was short-lived but potent. Miller had an estate known as “the Heights” in the Oakland hills, where those attracted to his fame and persona could meet the legend in the flesh. Johnson and Sterling made regular pilgrimages to Miller’s estate, the summer and fall of that first year, and it was there that Sterling learned from Miller the first and primary thread of the triple-threaded Western archetype, that of identification. As Benediktsson details, “Miller’s flamboyant rejection of middle-class values gave Sterling a lasting impression of how a poet should act. Sterling was all his life preoccupied with being a poet, and there is no doubt that his posturing in later years can be traced to this grand poseur”. 

One year later, Sterling was invited by Albert Bierce to his camp northeast of Oakland. It was here that Sterling met Albert’s brother, Ambrose. This would grow to be one of the most important relationships in Sterling’s life. For the next four or five years, Sterling was able to maintain a balance between his social life and his professional 36 life, spending most evenings and weekends with fellow artists and bohemians, while during the week he followed in his uncle’s footsteps. This division became much more difficult to maintain when he married his personal secretary, Caroline “Carrie” Rand, on February 7, 1886. That being said, Sterling remained successful enough that he and his wife were able to reside in a cottage they rented in Piedmont; additionally, within the year after his marriage, Sterling decided to become a poet. Once the decision was made, Sterling began sending manuscripts to his friend and famous poet/writer Ambrose Bierce, who would become Sterling’s biggest promoter and most influential critic.

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Sometime between the year or so before he was married and 1901, Sterling ascended as one of the ringleaders of a group of artists and writers who would often meet at his home in Piedmont. As Sterling rose to prominence within the Piedmont artists’ colony, his relationship with his wife began to suffer. Benediktsson indicates that, “as [Sterling] passed thirty and remained only Havens’ personal secretary, it became increasingly evident to his family that he would not become a captain of commerce”. At the same time, Benediktsson later points out that, “the true crisis in [Sterling’s] domestic life did not begin until he became bosom friends with another young writer, one who was not content merely to pose as a Bohemian; he was Jack London, and Sterling met him in the Spring of 1901”. London’s primary influence upon Sterling was to expand upon the lessons of Miller and Bierce. While Sterling’s first mentors taught him how to be a poet in the West, it was London who gave Sterling permission to be himself and listen to his own impulses. [Source]